Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) don't have access to the mentioned three hospitals. They can only sent them drugs, medical equipment, they haven't treated a single one person. They can't directly confirm an attack but were judging by the symptoms described.

from the very link in the article!

Since 2012, MSF has built a strong and reliable collaboration with medical networks, hospitals and medical points in the Damascus governorate, and has been providing them with drugs, medical equipment and technical support. Due to significant security risks, MSF staff members have not been able to access the facilities.

“MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack,” said Dr Janssens. “However, the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the events—characterised by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers—strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent.

I don't usually read about current affairs on Reddit, but today I thought I'd see what Reddit's opinion was on Syria. I found loads of chemical attack deniers and pro-Assad people. I was very shocked and surprised.

And hows that any different than the big newspapers and media here being owned by a few individuals that are big Donors to presidential candidates, senators and lobbyist. That comply with the government wishes regarding which news are a no no or withholding them for months.

Western media is run by corporations who's only interest is to generate views and make money. That's significantly different than state media like PressTV (Iran) or RussiaToday (Russia) which are controlled for political and not monetary purposes.

CNN and other news organizations may self-censor based on government requests but if the choose to refuse they can do so without reprecussions. Just look at how many times the New York Times and The Guardian have leaked shit the US government clearly does not want leaked. If you think the US government has 100% power over the news organizations, you would be dead wrong.

If you read the pro regime propaganda posts many here want us to believe Assad is "just too nice of a guy" to bomb the shit out of his ENEMY during a civil war. Why OBVIOUSLY the rebels gassed 1000 of their own just to "frame" poor misunderstood Assad. The allegations of a false flag are nothing short of wishful thinking by people trying to deny that Assad is a war criminal. We KNOW he has used every other kind of weapon at his disposal to kill over one hundred thousand of his own people. Is it that much of a stretch to think he'd use chemical weapons?

But lets say the rebels did do it. Then why Assad is refusing to let the UN team visit the area of the chemical attack which is only 15 minutes away from the hotel the team is staying at? It's now three days since the attack took place and yet the team hasn't been allowed by the Syrian government to visit the location of the attack. And how do you explain this report from CBS: Administration officials said Friday that U.S. intelligence detected activity at known Syrian chemical weapons sites before Wednesday's possible chemical weapons attack that killed at least 1,000 people, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57599888/u.s-detected-activity-at-syria-chemical-weapons-sites-before-attack/

Seriously, these allegations that this was a false flag are just ridiculous.

Sarin is extremely difficult to use. It's highly toxic, volatile and corrosive, and rockets transporting it mix precursors mid-flght. I find it very difficult to believe that rebels built at least 18 such rockets, and fired them in a coordinated attack across the capital.

Not only that, but they were launched hours before the largest government offensive in Damascus in months, and offensive which targeted those exact same neighborhoods. Did the rebels just happen to launch a mass chemical attack against themselves just hours before a government offensive?

Assad initially denied an attack even took place, describing the "rumors" as trying to distract the UN investigators from their mission. And since then, he has blocked their access from sites they have specifically requested to investigate, despite the danger. That is nothing short of suspicious.

So let's try to think about it from Assad's perspective. Right now he's being propped up by Russia and a few regional Sunni governments. He knows he's not going to come to any sort of peace terms with the rebels but he ALSO knows that the West is uncomfortable sending any sort of military aid to the leading rebel factions because of their Islamist ties.

So, what options does Assad have? Diplomacy is out of the question, he's done too much and killed too many for there to be peace. If he leaves power he knows that his minority Alawite population will likely be slaughtered by the rebels. What is his endgame here? He can't kill all of the Sunnis, they're 3/4ths of the population!

What he CAN do, however, is kill enough Sunnis around Damascus and along the coast to clear out enough room for an Alawite State free of Sunnis. He's using chemical weapons for three reasons-

Chemical weapons kill people but leave infrastructure intact.

Chemical weapons are fucking terrifying. The threat of chemical weapon attacks is enough to drive people out of Damascus in droves.

By gassing the people just after UN inspectors arrived, Assad has just called out the West. He's telling them to put up or shut up. The US is not likely to intervene since Russian and China are backing Assad so heavily, the conflict could spiral out of control for the US. If the US doesn't intervene, the FSA will essentially evaporate since they're only hope of fighting effectively is support and better equipment and training from the US. It's a gambit. Assad is banking on the fact that the US can't intervene. And if they don't, they'll be made completely irrelevant to this conflict and Assad will have a better shot at holding on to power.

The rebels' record is very far from being clean. However, it is far cleaner than Assad's record could ever hope to be. That's a fact. I'm not disputing that the rebels needlessly killed. The point I'm trying to make is that Assad's government has done FAR more unnecessary murder than the rebels.

This is partly true, however you need to "scrub" the areas they were used in because they are still highly toxic, chemical agents can settle on surfaces and mix with water, yet still remain lethal/toxic for quiet awhile

Which brings up a point I've had. I saw the videos, I saw the pictures. They were handling the bodies and treatnig people with no protection on....they're apparently not all dead/being adversely affected while treating them. If this was sarin, what the fuck?

Doctors living in Syria...don't know how to handle Sarin? Our basic EMT's living in the midwest USA know how to handle Sarin victims. ANY chemical weapon, is treated the exact same way. Remove the victim from the source, INCLUDING THEIR CLOTHS. Decon them, then start treatment, otherwise your just prolonging exposure. No it doesn't cause instant death, but even secondary bypass you're gonna get sick, very quickly. Maybe not debiliatingly sick, but to the point where your going to need to be treated. You wouldn't be able to work from my understanding, especially if your standing in a room with 200+ victmis, with their cloths stll on, ect. The scary reality is that this may be a different(read newer) form of an old G-series. If that's true, the attacks could happen, and nobody will be able to figure out what it was. If it degrades that quickly, that's a huuuuuge problem.

The doctors in the videos I saw where striping the clothes of victims, washing them with buckets of water, and giving (children usually) injections of what few doses of Atropine they had (antidote to nerve agents).

They also did not give mouth to mouth, that would only kill the the person giving mouth to mouth resuscitation. They were properly following the emergency protocol for nerve agent triage, though they were overwhelmed by the numbers of injured and dying. They seemed to be following the advice found in this paper...

They were, but a lot of the people hauling the bodies in were not! The doctors assumed correct BSI protocol, however the people transporting them? That's what I thought was odd, dudes picking up people bare handed, multiple people, and never having any issue?

He explains that they used 200 oxygen cylinders, hundreds of atropine doses, but "we lost some members of the medical team ...[sobbing]. May they rest in peace." at 3 minutes 17 seconds into the video.

"Sarin degrades after a period of several weeks to several months. The shelf life can be shortened by impurities in precursor materials. According to the CIA, some Iraqi sarin had a shelf life of only a few weeks, owing mostly to impure precursors"

You mean weeks? If it was exposed to water, yes it breaks down in hours. Also, you are saying it took 3-5 hours to these patients to the treatment facilities. At best it looks like a weaker version of Sarin(355/1600 is a pretty low number for sarin iirc).

You would think if Assad's forces was using it, they would aim to kill rebels - first and foremost and civilian would be collateral damage.

Assad has been targeting civilian areas with artillery, rockets, and bombers for years now. He's flattened entire city blocks with SCUD missiles. Why would you expect him to use chemical weapons any differently?

Lots of these medical people in Syria are not professionals or lack the skills they need for their job. Most doctors have fled the country, there are random people filling these sorts of jobs now.

Important to understand because in the past they have killed civilian patients by overdosing them with Atropine and other drugs. I was reading comments by American doctors saying the doses of these sorts of anti-nerve gas drugs (well, they stop or reduce the impact of Sarin somehow, I am no expert) would kill patients. It is not unheard of that they could fuck these sorts of things up when they overreact.

It is also entirely possible the gas used was not sarin. Sometimes the symptoms don't even look like sarin. Possible chemicals the Syrian government has been suggested to have used are highly concentrated tear gas, BZ, or some homebrew chemical intended to be less lethal than a full out Sarin attack.

All sorts of problems with the claim of sarin; they said the gas smelled like rotting eggs, sarin is odorless.

If chemical weapons were used, it could have been anything from tear gas to sarin to a mix of chemicals some Syrians concocted. They have an interest in using the weapons to damage the opposition, but they do not want to trigger foreign intervention. They probably want to use the weapons but keep body counts low so they don't get the USAF hitting them; full out use of a nerve gas would kill too many people.

TL;DR If chemicals are being used by the Syrian government at all, it isn't full out nerve gas attacks.

Pure Sarin is odourless, however, in Iraq for example sarin samples were 40-60% impure, they contained allot of the initial unreacted starting chemicals and solvent contamination (Isopropyl alcohol). Sarin is also very unstable, it's sometimes mixed with tributylamine or diisopropylcarbodiimide to try to stop it from decomposing. All these factors would impart an odour

Rotten eggs smell would indicate hydrogen sulphide, it also has neurotoxic effects, but it does not cause Miosis (pinpoint pupils), salvation, profuse sweating .. the so called Muscarine effects that I saw in the videos.

MSF strives to remain neutral during conflicts; this helps them avoid conflict in the country so that they are able to stay and help those who need it. Even if they felt it was a chemical attack they would not say so publicly. Nonetheless, the facts appear to speak for themselves in this situation.

Most of the Assad supporters here on Reddit claim that he wouldn't do such a thing because it's illogical, since he's been doing well lately. Therefore, it must be a false flag attack.

However, if his forces didn't do this, why is he refusing the UN access there? He should have insisted they check it out immediately upon getting there.

Why would Assad's forces do this? I think the sporadic nature of the (claimed) chemical weapons usage is because there hasn't been a top-down edict to use them. Rather, more mid-level Syrian army officers have decided themselves to use them, which is why there hasn't been widespread usage. The mid-level Syrian army officers are more concerned with winning their battles. The generals and Assad probably haven't ordered chemical weapons attacks since they are more concerned about the international political aspect of it. However, the reason they won't let the UN go to this site or determine who used the chemical weapons at the other sites are probably because it was their forces, even if the leadership didn't command it.

Most of the Assad supporters here on Reddit claim that he wouldn't do such a thing because it's illogical, since he's been doing well lately. Therefore, it must be a false flag attack.

I can assure you Sleekery Assad stockpiled chemical weapons purely for ornamental reasons, and he FSA gassed their own just to frame poor old misunderstood Assad. Read it a hundred times now on Reddit.

The fact that Assad supporters even exist pisses me off. How dare you fucking people. You sit on your keyboards thousands of miles away as a dictator slaughters his own people, trying to come up with conspiracy theories to defned him, based on no evidence, just your fucking feelings, and you say you support him like this is some game. Disgusting.

This website has always been bad. But actually defending this dictator gassing civilians. I'm so fucking disgusted with you assholes. I never thought I'd see this.

who do you think will fill the power vacuum when we topple Assad? FSA, Kurds? democratic progressives? GTFO. This iis direct support for a fanatic fundamentalist islamist regime next door israel. You monster.

Sadly, a lot of the same people who are defending Assad think that their not being able to download mp3s is the greatest human rights violation in the history of the world.

Those who want to stop us from downloading mp3s and want to oppose Assad happen to be the biggest international law offenders since WWII: the US government. Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba, Iraq, Cambodia, Chile, Argentina, Brasil, ... millions of deaths, tortures, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, war crimes ...

Just the Iraq war is worse than whatever Assad's done or is doing, even if you buy everything that's thrown against him.

So you will pardon me if I don't swallow your vile propaganda, fuck you very much.

The fact that Rebel supporters even exist pisses me off. How dare you fucking people. You sit on your keyboards thousands of miles away as al Qaeda slaughters its own fellow Muslims, trying to come up with conspiracy theories to defend them, based on no evidence, just your fucking feelings, and you say you support "the rebels" like this is some game. Disgusting.

This website has always been bad. But actually defending these terrorists gassing civilians. I'm so fucking disgusted with you assholes. I never thought I'd see this.

My evidence is that they haven't been used yet, there's no reason they would be used at this point. The army still has control over most of the populous parts of the country and has a large upper hand. Assad is not an idiot and would not take action which he knows would guarantee international retaliation against himself and compromise the control he has managed to maintain over most of the country. He may be a tyrant, but he's not insane. We saw a similar affair last year with NK; suppository mad dictators somehow manage to make somewhat sensible decisions when it comes to their self preservation.

Putting aside the fact that it seems strange for Assad to use chemical weapons after having regained control of most of Syria. I just don't see why would he do this a day after he grants UN weapons inspectors access to Syria? Surely Assad has better memory than most of us and remembers how the MSM deceived the west with WMD accusatios prior to the US/UK invasion of Iraq.

I wouldn't trust MSF in this case. Although some like to compare MSF to the red cross - I would say this is incorrect. Haven't they not been involved in scandals before? Hasn't Bernard Kouchner, a one prominent leader of MSF, allegedly been linked to corruption scandals and the trafficking of human organs?